Author: tobygriff

On June 5, the Oakland Athletics called up a special pitcher from a triple A team in Nashville, Tennessee. Pat Venditte was called up to pitch in relief for the Oakland Athletics against the Boston Red Sox. He started the inning Lefty and got Brock Holt to ground out and then he switched hands to get an inning ending double play with his right hand. Venditte is ambidextrous and has a special glove with two thumb holes so he can decide if he wants to pitch right or left. I find this really interesting because believe it or not I am ambidextrous too! I play for the London Sports team the Kansas City Royals in London, England. Venditte is highly thought of in the Athletics organization and I will look forward to seeing him develop as a pitcher. 

Check out this link to learn more about his special glove: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/heres-the-baseball-glove-that-ambidextrous-pitcher-pat-venditte-uses-2015-06-08

Here is a picture of me pitching lefty.

Yesterday, the Golden State Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the Championship Series.  LeBron James was dominating and it looked as if the Cavaliers were cruising.   But then, the Warriors responded and the lead went back and forth.  LeBron James had 44 points in the game and Stephen Curry had 26 points.  With one second left in the game, LeBron James missed the buzzer beater and the game went into overtime.  The Warriors owned the overtime with the Cavaliers, only scoring 2 points to the Warriors 10.  The final score was Golden State 108 — Cleveland Cavaliers 100.  Game 2 will be at 2 o’clock in the morning on Monday 8, where the Cavaliers will be looking to even the series at one game apiece.  Here are the highlights of game 1.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgiOzwHU_-Ym 

Stay tuned for the results later in the week.

The Beast of Sport

​​Since getting to 10 games over 500 (with 500 being the same amounts of wins and losses) the Giants have lost four in a row. It was surprising when the drop started against the Atlanta Braves because they looked to be dominating. Tim Lincecum struggled and the Braves routed the Giants 7-0. Everybody expected them to win the next game though because Madison Bumgarner was pitching. It looked as if they were in charge after Brandon Belt and Brandon Crawford launched back-to-back homeruns. Bumgarner was cruising along and even though he gave up a run in the fifth he still wasn’t giving up many hits. Then in the seventh inning Bumgarner gave up a single and then former dodger Juan Uribe went deep to give the Braves a 3-2 lead. The Giants would take a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the seventh but lose 7-5. Then Giants now opened a series against the Pirates and even though Ryan Volgelesong pitched well the Pirates still managed to win 4-3. Hope that the Giants might win the next game behind Chris Heston quickly evaporated as Heston only lasted 3.2 innings as the Giants lost 7-4. The Giants will search for a much needed with Tim Hudson pitching tonight.

Don’t go anywhere! Stay tuned for the results later this week.

On Saturday night Juventus will play Barcelona in the Champions League Final. Messi is largely regarded as the most talented player in the world and personally I think so too.  But you can’t forget Pirlo. Even though Messi is younger than Pirlo, Pirlo is very creative and in most games he completes every single pass that he tries. Messi also scores more than Pirlo but Pirlo has more assists than Messi. Both these players are awesome in their own way and I think that it will be a great honor to watch them play against each other. I think that Pirlo is going to perform better than Messi on the day because he has more experience.

Stay tuned for the game on Saturday.
 
 

By The Deputy Beast of Sport

The oldest girl to ever do a marathon at the age of 92 is so cool. Check out the story on ABC News here:
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/cancer-survivor-harriette-thompson-92-nc-oldest-woman/story?id=31443167

On the 20th of May the Houston Rockets began the Western Conference Finals against the Golden State Warriors. This was a best of seven series and the winner would get to play the winner of the Eastern Conference Finals. (The two teams playing in that were the Cleveland  Cavaliers and the Atlanta Hawks.) The series opened in Golden State where even though James Harden had 28 points they could not overcome the Warriors as Steph Curry had 34 points. The final score was 106 to 110 in Golden State’s favour. Game 2 was even closer than Game 1 with The Warriors winning 99 to 98. James Harden was very frustrated with himself even though he had 38 points in the game because he blew the game winner with seven seconds left. Game 3 was a nightmare for the Rockets as Stephen Curry had 40 points for the Warriors and James Harden only had 15 points for the Rockets. When the buzzer sounded the final score was 115 to 80 with the Rockets losing yet again. They hoped that their elimination resistance would continue as they had come back from being down 3 games to 1 earlier in the Post Season. They did win Game 4 128 to 115 with James Harden posting 45 points. Unfortunately The Rally facing elimination ended for the Rockets as the got creamed 104 to 90 with James Harden  posting only 14 points, he also had 14 turnovers. Golden State did deserve to win the series and will play the Cleveland Cavaliers on June 5 for the NBA Championship. Lots of people thought that there would be a Game 7 between these to titans but the way Golden State performed the Rockets hardly had a real chance to show off their great basketball. Golden State really expressed themselves on the court and in the end the best team won.

This week we will get a chance to interview a member of the Houston Rockets management team and ask him key questions about new possible players and his hopes for next year.  Stay tuned for that interview later in the week.

By The Deputy Beast of Sport

The Deputy Beast of Sport (aka my sister # DBos) and my Mum did the Race for Life this weekend.  Here is the report from DBos: Here at the Beast of Sport we love to support good causes. Yesterday my Mum and I did a race called Race for Life. It raises money for cancer research and it was mostly for girls. It took place in Regent’s Park and was 5k. We did it in 32 minutes which is fast for an 8 year old! My Mum could barely keep up. We raised £200 for charity.

The Deputy

http://www.kidrated.com/

Kidrated is a totally Boss website that allows kids to review places to go and things to do.  We think it’s awesome.

Yesterday was the final of the FA cup in England and the Copa De Rey in Spain. In the FA cup final Alexis Sanchez scored a wonder goal that  beat former Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given who  was rooted to the spot as he watched Sanchez’s shot ricochet off the bottom of the crossbar and into the net.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyzSluJSR-8

On the same day in Spain we had the Final of the Copa De Rey. Everybody knows Lionel Messi has magic in his boots and he proved that very clearly as he skipped past the young Athetico Bilbao defenders and slotted it into the back of the net with quality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1icQjpG8vM